


For Want of a Nail

by singingwithoutwords



Category: 28 Weeks Later (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Fix-It, from zombies to fluff in 4k words, the author can only apologize, this got a little out of hand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-14
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-13 04:45:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2137452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Millions of lives are saved, a global zombie apocalypse is averted, and everybody lives happily ever after, all because the car started.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Want of a Nail

**Author's Note:**

> Seriously, I have no idea how all of this happened. It was supposed to stop after they got to the chopper, but it just... didn't.
> 
> Title comes from the [trope of the same name](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ForWantOfANail), in which a small change (like, oh... a car starting when it didn't in canon) causes massive changes in the outcome of something.
> 
> Basically I'm forever in denial about Doyle. Don't look at me.  
> /hides

Miracle of miracles, the car actually starts. It takes a few tries, but for a piece of junk that's been sitting dead on the side of the road for half a year, that's still pretty damn impressive.

Levy, as it turns out, is not an aggressive driver. She's an insane one. She takes corners at full speed, jumps the curb more than once, and decides that the stairs into the subway system are just as acceptable as roads. Not the route Arthur would have taken if he'd been behind the wheel, but hey: she's the Major. Not his place to question her decisions.

Somehow they all survive the stairs and crawl out of the van alive. Levy dusts Andy off in the dim light struggling to reach them, then turns to Arthur.

“What now?” she asks, deferring to him.

Arthur takes stock of where they're standing and what they have, and comes up with the only plan of action that has even the slimmest chance of getting any of them through alive.

“We go down,” he says. “Take the tunnels as close to the stadium as possible.” He looks down at the kids. “This won't be pretty,” he warns them. “The tunnels haven't been cleared yet. There are going to be bodies. Probably a lot of them.”

Tammy nods, wrapping an arm around Andy and pulling him close. They both look sick, but determined.

“It's also going to be pitch black,” Arthur continues. “Literally, there is no light down there. I've got a night scope, so I'll be able to see, but you won't. Okay?”

“You'll get us through,” Andy says with absolute conviction, still pressed close to Tammy, and Arthur smiles despite the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he's going to let the kid down.

“Alright,” he says, ruffling Andy's hair affectionately. “Let's get going, before Flynn gets bored waiting on us. Major, you take point. Andy, you hold Major Levy's hand, and you don't let go for anything. Tammy, you've got Andy's other hand. I'll take rear.”

They line up and link hands while Arthur adjusts his scope, and start down.

The going is slow. Twice, they have to stop because someone's foot is caught on a corpse. Tammy screams exactly once, then chokes it off and maintains panicked silence. Andy whimpers constantly, but he's pretty damn brave considering his voice hasn't even broken yet. Even Levy has her panic moments, usually when she steps on a body before Arthur can warn her.

The bottom of the escalator is literally piled with corpses. He calls a quiet halt, and they all freeze in their tracks.

“Okay,” he says. “There's bodies ahead, and we can't get around them. We have to climb over.”

Tammy makes a noise that's half keen, half sob, and Andy echoes it. Even in the grainy low visibility of the night scope, he can see Levy swallow convulsively, like she's trying not to vomit.

“I know,” Arthur says sympathetically. “It's the only way, though. Hold on tight to each other and take it slow.”

Andy shakes his head and whimpers, and Arthur can't blame him. How old is the kid- ten? Twelve? Way too young to have to deal with this shit.

“I know,” he repeats. “If it helps, pretend it's just wood. It's a pile of wood, just twigs and branches. Can you do that? Can you climb over a pile of wood?”

“I can do wood,” Andy says quietly, tugging on Tammy's hand. “It's just wood, Tammy.”

Tammy nods, even though Andy won't be able to see it. “Just wood,” she agrees. It sounds more forced, but she's older. Her powers of imagination aren't as great.

They start down again, and two adolescent litanies of _it's just wood_ echo softly back from the darkness to a background chorus of Levy hissing quietly in pain. Her leg has to be pure agony by now, but they can't stop to let her rest yet.

Andy stumbles and nearly pulls Tammy down with him, but Levy manages to keep him upright, and Tammy's flailing hand finds the rail. Arthur maintains his calm through mystic means even he can't fully understand, talking them through the tangle of desiccated bodies that extends beyond the end of the escalator and out into the (relative) open. Both kids are on the verge of hyperventilating and Levy is limping heavily by the time they clear the sprawl, but they all make it.

“Okay,” Arthur says. “We take a quick breather here. Major, wall is three feet to your left. Clear path.”

Levy reaches out, groping until she touches the wall, then slumps against it. Andy leans next to her, and so does Tammy. Doyle doesn't let himself relax. He's still on guard. They aren't to safe ground yet.

He counts to sixty. Back down to zero. That's all they can spare, no matter how much he wants to let them rest some more.

“Time to move out, troops,” he says apologetically. “We can nap in the chopper, but we gotta get there first.”

Groans all around, but they all straighten and adjust their grips on each other, anyway.

They start moving again. There are fewer bodies in the way, then none at all- just garbage and debris.

Once they make the platform itself, they find light. Not much of it yet, but the tunnel roof a ways down has collapsed in places. The kids visibly relax. Light is reassuring. Light is hope. Light means they can see for themselves, and everything's going to be okay.

Light is a lying son of a bitch.

The Infected comes out of fucking nowhere. It's male, covered in blood, and disturbingly focused. It grabs Levy before Arthur even sees it and rips her away from Andy, throwing her hard against the wall. Doesn't maim her, doesn't bite or claw her, just throws her, then doesn't even bother going after her to make sure she's dead. In a fraction of a second it's on Andy, too close to shoot without risking hitting the kid, too. Andy and Tammy are both screaming, high-pitched with terror.

The world doesn't actually slow. It doesn't even seem to. 'Bullet time' is movie bullshit. Arthur's brain just kicks into combat mode, shunting emotion aside, identifying targets, flicking through options, discarding rationality for reflex. Everything happens fast, too fast for actual thought processes, just the intuitive jump from situation to solution with no conscious steps in between, and he hasn't even finished a thought before he's got his combat knife out and buried in the Infected's back, drawing its attention.

The Infected turns on him with an enraged roar, and Tammy is an angel in premature eyeliner; he doesn't even have to shout at her before she's pulling Andy out of the way. His aim isn't as good with only one hand on his firearm, but he still gets three bullets in the Infected's stomach and blows out its left kneecap. It collapses, howling, spewing blood and scrabbling at the ground like the wounded animal it is.

Its hand finds Andy's ankle.

It yanks him down, out of Tammy's grasp, clawing its way up his body to his face, nails digging into skin. Arthur blows its brains out all over the wall in less than two seconds. Still too late.

Andy's cheeks is scratched deep, too deep for him not to be bleeding, and spattered with blood that even Arthur can tell isn't his.

Arthur drops to his knees and yanks the Infected's corpse off Andy, mind racing. Andy wails, lunging for him, and Arthur knows he should kill him, plant a bullet in his brain before he turns and becomes just another monster, but he can't. Andy isn't trying to tear his eyes out or bite him, he's clinging to him, sobbing into his fatigues, and Arthur just. Fucking. Can't.

“Doyle?”

Arthur looks up, meets Levy's eyes as she pulls herself up the wall. She sounds just as terrified as he feels.

Arthur unslings his firearm and sets it down, shoving it across the ground toward Levy. “Get the girl out,” he orders, like she isn't sixteen goddamn ranks his superior. “Now.”

Tammy doesn't want to, but Levy is a soldier. She knows what has to be done. She picks up the rifle, grabs Tammy, and drags her away screaming.

Arthur wraps an arm around Andy's shaking shoulders, free hand dropping to his service pistol. He closes his eyes and waits. He can't bring himself to kill Andy until he turns, but he's quick; even if Andy infects him, he should have enough time before he himself turns to take them both down.

He doesn't bother counting the seconds, preoccupied with what he's about to do. Making peace with the fact he's about to die with Andy's blood on his soul. He isn't counting, so it takes longer than it should to realize it's been too long. Symptoms should show in under a minute, but it's been at least three, and Andy's sobs are going quiet, and Arthur can't feel his knees, and nothing's happening.

Arthur opens his eyes and looks down. Andy looks up at him, lost and scared. There's enough light to see his eyes, and the left sclera is patched red with burst vessels, but his irises are still mismatched blue and brown. Not red. Not insane.

Not showing symptoms.

“Why aren't I mad?” Andy asks softly. “I'm infected, I'm supposed to go mad.”

Levy was right. The only reason Arthur doesn't laugh is because he knows if he starts, he won't be able to stop.

“You're immune,” Arthur says, just as softly. “Major Levy said your mom was, too. She must've passed whatever made her immune on to you. The virus is in you, but it can't hurt you.”

“So I won't go mad?”

“No. But I will, so don't go biting me, okay?”

It's a terrible joke, awful black humor that's pretty much all he has left at the moment, but it makes Andy giggle, so it does its job.

“Okay,” Andy says, wiping his cheek on his sleeve. “Do we have to stay here, anyway?”

Arthur shakes his head, standing. His knees protest. He ignores them. “If we hurry, we can catch up with your sister,” he says, rolling down his sleeves to cover his arms, swapping out his gloves for the uncomfortable ones that have whole fingers on them.

Andy watches with the grim, wounded understanding even most soldiers never have to experience, but doesn't hesitate to press close when Arthur offers him a now-covered hand.

Arthur feels naked with just a pistol for protection. He wants to hurry, but forces himself to maintain a pace fit for Andy's short legs, and he slows even more when they reach a long stretch of collapsed tunnel in time to watch Tammy help Levy up a pile of rubble to the street.

Arthur pushes Andy behind him and stops in plain view at the base of the makeshift ramp, holstering his pistol and holding his hands up. “Major!”

Levy turns so fast she nearly falls back into the tunnel, bringing the rifle up with shaking hands.

“He's a carrier!” Arthur calls, wanting to get that out even if he still winds up dead. “You were right!”

Levy nearly drops the rifle, collapsing back against a chunk of concrete, and Arthur can clearly hear her heartfelt _thank god!_ from this distance.

Tammy takes that as an open invitation and scrambles back down the rubble. Andy darts out to meet her, pulling up short at the last second. He tugs on the sleeves of his hoodie, covering his hands, and is very careful not to touch Tammy's bare skin when he hugs her, then immediately retreats back to Arthur, hiding behind him. Tammy looks hurt and confused.

“Just because Andy's immune doesn't mean you are,” Arthur points out as gently as he can. “He can still infect you.”

Tammy's lip trembles, but she nods, reluctantly dragging herself back to street level. Arthur and Andy follow, maintaining a bit of distances, five or six feet, just in case.

The rest of the journey to the stadium passes without event. No Infected, no burn squad, no clouds of gas. They might as well be the only four left in the entire country for all the nothing they encounter on the way.

Flynn is waiting in the middle of the stadium green. Arthur takes point now, since he's the one Flynn knows, and Andy stays glued to his side.

Flynn stares at him for a long moment, then shakes his head, hurrying over to hug him. “You're one lucky son of a bitch, Doyle,” he says.

“Hey, hey- no bad words in front of the strays,” Arthur says, laughing, hugging back. “It's good to see you, too. We good to go?”

“As we'll ever be,” Flynn says with a sigh.

“Okay,” Arthur says. “Everybody in. Let's move.”

 

* * *

 

Two days later, they're forced to land somewhere in Upper Normandy, France. Flynn and Levy between them know enough French to get a truck and enough gas to reach Rouen.

Levy pulls rank left and right and bluffs her way to a quarantined hospital and a staff almost as dedicated to creating a vaccine as she is. In the month it takes the Army to track them down, she's managed to get herself turned into a sort of public icon. Half of Europe is already calling her some variation of the Peaceful Lady of War, and basically America is going to have to declare war on an entire continent if they want to pry her out of France before she's done.

Arthur hears all of this from Flynn. Against literally everyone's better judgment, Arthur decided no way in hell is he leaving these kids in quarantine by themselves. He turned in all his weapons, sat through half a dozen translated lectures, and let himself be sealed in with them. Andy and Tammy leave one at a time under carefully controlled conditions for testing and blood draws, and Arthur stays with the other one and keeps them calm until their sibling comes back.

So he sits on a cot with Tammy, absently pulling her fingers out of her mouth before she can bite her nails _too_ short, and listens to Flynn pass on news of the outside world.

It takes a total of two and a half months to create a vaccine. Arthur volunteers as soon as they ask, on the condition that Andy and Tammy are never separated while he's gone. They both hug him and wish him luck, but neither is naïve enough anymore to make him promise he'll be back.

He promises, anyway.

He spends two days in solitary quarantine. Most of it, he's delirious, hallucinating, burning up. He sees every horrible thing that almost happened to Levy and the kids, sees them torn apart, burned alive, succumbing to the nerve gas, shot full of holes, infected and mindless animals because Levy was wrong and there is no immunity.

The fever finally breaks. He sees Levy for the first time in months when she comes in to personally congratulate him on making it. She's cut her hair short, and she obviously needs sleep. Arthur tells her she's beautiful, and she laughs, tired but with real humor.

They keep him for another 24 hours, just in case, then return him to the kids and a quarantine that's becoming more and more a formality by the day.

Flynn reports that small pockets of survivors are being airlifted out of Great Britain. The vaccine is working. Even if another outbreak occurs, they have the means to nip it in the bud.

Levy works out a cure based on the vaccine, and Andy is the first to receive it. The cure is actually easier to live through than the vaccine, which Arthur finds just a bit unfair but is also grateful for.

The quarantine is finally lifted. Flynn, because he's an asshole, neglected to tell Arthur that Levy isn't the only one who got famous.

Flynn is being called a sword of the sky. Slightly archaic, but not actually that far off the mark. Arthur is obviously not alone in his assessment that Tammy is an angel, and he actually sees a poster depicting her with radiant white wings before she manages to cover it with her jacket. Andy is the Savior of Mankind, and actually has a small cult in Rouen. The kid finds it just as embarrassing as Tammy finds the angel thing.

Arthur, they're simply calling the Guardian. Apparently Tammy and Andy told anyone who stood still long enough to listen about their escape from District One and Great Britain as a whole. And if you pull off enough badass shots in front of kids of a certain age, they _will_ elevate you to godhood at some point.

They mostly stay inside. Part of the hospital has been converted to living quarters. None of them are all that comfortable being too far apart, so Arthur drags a cot into the room Tammy and Andy share and sets up camp. He joins them for their French lessons, and they don't comment when they wake up to find he's stood watch all night, unable to sleep.

The United States Army passes on an official statement praising Arthur, Scarlet (he has trouble thinking of her as Major Levy these days), and Flynn four months after the second outbreak. He receives a private letter stating that, while the army is glad they saved the world and everything, technically he abandoned his post and is very lucky they aren't actually going to do anything about it, so maybe he could do them a favor and _not_ re-enlist.

Six months after the second outbreak, Arthur and Flynn are cleared to go home. Flynn goes gladly, but Arthur declines. He has nothing to go home to. He doesn't have a family, a sweetheart, any friends that aren't also in the armed forces. He'd rather stay.

At the eight-month mark almost to the day, Andy calls him Dad.

It's no secret the kids are orphans. It only took Andy a week to break down and confess the Infected from the tunnels was his father, and there's no way their mother survived London's cleansing. Arthur's never really considered himself father material, personally, and having kids has never been on his bucket list. He's pretty sure it's just because there are no other candidates, that if Scarlet had been the one to stay locked up with them for months, who held them after nightmares and understood the panic and paranoia of PTSD, who let them show weakness and let them see him at his low points... well, lacking any other adult to lean on and with Arthur so close, it's no wonder they got attached.

It's probably best to distance himself, to step back and set some boundaries. He'll be taking advantage of them otherwise, he's pretty sure. But when Andy wakes him up at 0200 and whispers “I had a nightmare, Dad,” Arthur just scoots to the side, hauls Andy up, and holds him while he sobs it out. Andy still hasn't hit puberty, and he's not gonna leave the kid to founder just because it might be morally ambiguous otherwise.

They all have breakfast together the next morning. Andy and Tammy share a whispered conversation while Scarlet talks about the plans being made to rebuild London (again). After a few minutes, Tammy glances up, clears her throat, and says, “Can you pass the sugar, Dad?”

Scarlet drops her fork. It's plastic, and doesn't make much noise when it hits the table, but it still sounds like a cannon to Arthur. He very carefully doesn't look at her as he passes the sugar to Tammy, who smiles shyly and sets it down without actually using it.

Scarlet spends a good minute just staring, then visibly collects herself and does her best to finish the meal without letting on that anything happened.

A year after second outbreak, Arthur formally adopts Tammy and Andy. The French government and what's left of the British one bless the adoption. The President of the United States does, too. All three countries extend an invitation for them to take up residence.

They choose France. The kids don't want to go back to England, and Scarlet's work is all happening here, anyway. The people of Rouen give them a house. Scarlet moves in with them. Tammy and Andy start school again and tutor Arthur, because his French is still at about tourist levels in a lot of areas. Scarlet gets an official government post and jokes that Arthur is her wife now. He convinces one of their neighbors to teach him how to cook, because if he's going to be a housewife, he's going to be the best damn housewife in France.

It's another three months before he kisses Scarlet over a late bottle of wine. She tastes like berries and antiseptic and mango chapstick.

They never discuss it. They don't need to. Nothing's really changed, except now there's more kissing.

Tammy gets her first boyfriend two years after second outbreak. He picks her up at home and takes her to a movie, and Arthur is fairly certain he comes close to making the kid faint a time or two while they wait for her to finish getting ready. She comes back just before curfew, announces she's going to marry the boy, and goes to bed.

Arthur spends the rest of the night quietly freaking out, because even if Tammy doesn't marry this one, she's nearly grown now. She'll be setting out to make her own way sooner rather than later, and the thought of letting her go is terrifying.

That boy doesn't last, and neither does the next one, or the first two girls, or the boy after them, but Arthur silently loses his mind each time.

By the time Arthur gives Tammy away in a civil union to a woman named Brigitte, Andy's almost as tall as Arthur and making eyes at a girl in his class. Arthur isn't sure he can survive it.

Scarlet reminds him he'll have to do it all a third time when Ashley grows up, just to watch the meltdown.

She can be so mean sometimes.

 

* * *

 

Thirty-eight years after second outbreak, Andy brings his wife and three children to a country graveyard in Upper Normandy, France.

There isn't much of a crowd, just family and a handful of men and women in perfectly creased dress uniforms. His mother smiles sadly at him and takes his hand, greeting her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Tammy slips through the thin crowd with her wife in tow to join them. Ashley is there with his girlfriend and two of his exes that they still consider family- they join the cluster by the graveside as well.

The funeral is short, quiet, understated. Just the way Dad would have liked it. Arthur Doyle never believed in being big and flashy, and would have risen from the grave to call them all crazy if they'd tried anything lavish to celebrate him.

Once the ceremony is over, they adjourn to the house to trade stories, get drunk, and mourn. They tell the stories everyone knows, about District One, about the tunnels, about how Dad was willing to give up his own life just so Andy didn't die alone. They talk about the quiet moments no one knows, the nights he watched over them and the ones they watched over him. They talk about how it took nearly ten hours of solid arguing to get him into a suit at his own wedding. They talk about his love of reality TV and the stash of trashy romance novels nobody was supposed to know about. The rest of the world is mourning Sergeant Doyle: they mourn Arthur.

There's a public ceremony in Rouen tomorrow, one at the London Outbreak Memorial the next day, and a dedication ceremony in Washington, D.C. next week. Their grief goes public tomorrow, but tonight it's still solely theirs.

 


End file.
